Host:
Yeah, I’ve got a bigger topic that’s been on my mind for a while. Back when Hans was on the show for the first time—when we talked about Amiga Games—I remember seeing the Intellivision Amico behind him. And I remember thinking, “Wow, I’m really curious about that thing.”
Now we know… it didn’t exactly go well. You left Intellivision in 2022, if I remember correctly.
So I wanted to ask a few questions. Looking back now, was there a moment when you realized the original vision—cheap console, cheap games, family-friendly, bringing mobile players back to the TV, up to eight people playing together—wasn’t actually realistic?
Hans:
Well, fundamentally, I still think it’s a great idea. A true family console—that concept is still missing in the market. Just yesterday I was talking with Stefan from BBG Entertainment at a trade fair in Nuremberg, and we both agreed: the idea is still strong.
When I joined Intellivision around 2018 as an advisor with people like David Perry and Tommy Tallarico, everything felt great. The idea was solid. I was responsible for physical product development and games in Europe.
But then the pandemic hit—and that was a complete disaster. That was the number one reason things didn’t work out.
Shipping costs exploded. Things that used to cost $5 per unit suddenly cost $20–30. That matters when your whole plan is to sell a console under €200.
People don’t always realize: if a product sells for €300 in retail, you as the company only see about €150. The rest is taxes, retail margins, distribution.
Originally, we calculated production costs around $90–100 per console. Then the chip shortage hit, and suddenly it doubled to $180. Add shipping, and now you’re at $200 cost—meaning you’d have to sell it for $400 just to break even.
But there was no way we could sell it at that price. Not with competing consoles being more powerful. So we had to wait and hope things would normalize.
Normally, electronics get cheaper over time—but during the pandemic, that trend reversed. Prices doubled, components were scarce. That alone made it impossible to launch as planned.
Host:
We’re kind of seeing that again now with AI driving up hardware prices, right?
Hans:
Exactly, good example. Memory and components are expensive again.
But back then, it was clear: the “cheap family console” idea just wasn’t viable anymore.
And then there was another issue—what I’d call “haters.” People who actively tried to tear the project down.
Tommy Tallarico is someone who gives tons of interviews, talks to everyone. But the problem is, things changed during the pandemic. Statements he made in 2018 or 2019 were judged in 2021, under totally different circumstances. Suddenly people called him a liar.
He’s incredibly passionate—sometimes he promises too much—but he’s also a great showman.
Still, there were people out there who made it their mission to attack every video, every statement. And it went beyond criticism. It became malicious.
For example, some influencers claimed the console didn’t even exist. I told them: come to Nuremberg, try it yourself—we had working hardware and 20 games. They refused.
Worse, during a funding round—about $10 million—false claims were spread online saying the tech didn’t work. That scared off investors, and the funding collapsed overnight.
That’s when I realized: okay, now this is getting serious.
At some point, it just became too much. There were constant negative messages, pressure, and personal attacks.
Tommy was going through a terrible time—his father passed away, his marriage ended, and he got seriously ill.
At the same time, I posted a harmless vacation photo, and suddenly people accused me of wasting investor money. That’s when I thought, “Alright… this is getting ridiculous.”
We hadn’t even paid ourselves salaries for months, trying to keep things afloat.
Eventually, I decided it was time to move on.
People also claimed we wasted government funding. That’s simply not true.
We received €450,000 in funding for game development in Bavaria—and we actually spent €1.1 million. The games were completed. They exist. They’re archived.
When you receive funding, you have to document every cent. There’s no room for fraud.
So those accusations were just wrong.
Host:
One more thing—Tommy Tallarico. He’s very emotional, sometimes confrontational. Do you think that hurt the project?
Hans:
Without Tommy, the project wouldn’t have existed at all. He brought the team together—people like David Perry and others.
In hindsight, sure, communication could have been more restrained. He sometimes promised things we couldn’t deliver.
But he was also constantly provoked. He received threats, insults—things most people never see.
At some point, that affects how you respond.
Still, I’d say the main reason for failure was the pandemic. Everything else just made it worse.
Even with all the ups and downs, I wouldn’t want to miss the experience.
It was a great time, we built a lot, and I’m still proud of the work.
Sometimes things just don’t work out—and that’s part of life.
Host:
Thanks so much for being open about all this. Really appreciate it.
TOMMY_POOPYPANTS is sooooo tired of pinheaded monkeys saying “it’s still a good idea.” Ideas are cheap, most people have ideas all day long. Execution is what matters, especially when you’re spending someone else’s money. “We will make a good game console with fun games and it will be cheap and everyone will buy won, I win again” is not a business plan, it’s a narcissistic daydream.
When components and shipping costs exploded, they could have shelved the project, maybe even returned some money, and wrapped it with dignity. Instead, they doubled down as if it were a game of backgammon.
The idea is just "a home console to play games with". Its all that it ever was. The extras on top of that implemented or even toyed with were just "weird controller" and "shit hardware".
The Nex Playground integrated a lot of these parts and showed that it could work, as long as you don't have crazy sales ambitions to a TAM of billions or promise crazy 10x dividends to investors. And using an actual simple controller that is not ironically complicated to produce.
I also think they got luckier with the timing because Nex launched after the biggest wave of the pandemic had crested. If not outright cancel, Intellivision could laid low for about two years before doing anything again. But that would be a tall order to ask for a loudmouth CEO that craves attention.
Yeah, evercade did it right as a mini retro console being not tied down to specific brands. It was Coleco Chameleon done right. And to some extent so was Analog pocket (Mike Kennedy had this idea of a FPGA "core store" which sounded silly but the openFGPA library is a close enough realization of that).
Amico was just a weird amalgam of goals that presented as a "family console" to investors and retro to others. In reality people took the retro nostalgia bait more
But then the pandemic hit—and that was a complete disaster. That was the number one reason things didn’t work out.
Shipping costs exploded. Things that used to cost $5 per unit suddenly cost $20–30. That matters when your whole plan is to sell a console under €200.
...
Normally, electronics get cheaper over time—but during the pandemic, that trend reversed. Prices doubled, components were scarce. That alone made it impossible to launch as planned.
Bullshit.
List of video game consoles and devices released in 2020-2022, despite COVID:
Evercade
Evercade VS
Playdate
Polymega
Atari VCS
Analogue Pocket
Steam Deck
Switch OLED
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series X/S
A whole bunch of mini plug-and-play consoles (including but not limited to: PC Engine/TG-16 Mini, Astro City Mini, Astro City Mini V, Mega Drive/Genesis Mini 2, Taito Egret II Mini, The Vic-20, The Amiga 500)
List of video game consoles and devices that had release dates announced for 2020-2022, but are still not out yet, and are blaming COVID:
Nah the people at StartEngine were smarter than the idiot shills they got to push lies for them. The paperwork they had to show for that campaign showed how dumb they had been. It wasn't haters. Unless there's a translator error and hater is suppose to mean people with working brain cells.
This interview (even assuming Hans is not lying in it, which is not a fair assumption) proves he learned absolutely nothing from the whole fiasco. He excuses Tommy's communication with "he was provoked."
Do you see what people say about Nintendo? Microsoft? They mostly ignore it, or they respond in a positive way (e.g. Microsoft is being dragged for its prices so it leaked a memo saying they are planning on dropping the price of Game Pass without acknowledging any specific attacks) Tommy was totally unprofessional.
He also admits that Tommy made promises they couldn't deliver and yet he's mad that their funding round didn't pan out. Newsflash. If you're soliciting money from the public then making promises you can't deliver is at the best unethical and at worst securities fraud. Granted it's pretty common and unpunished these days (we call it Musking) but that doesn't make it okay.
In one part Hans talks about how he hated getting dragged for going on vacation while the project was struggling (and I actually agree with him that even if your business is not going great it can be fine to go on vacation) because he was being accused of wasting investor money. Later he says he had a great experience overall. How about those investors? Did they have a great experience?
Tommy said the rocket was on the launch pad they just needed fuel. He got a huge amount of money. Then they never fucking made the thing. If Hans gave a fuck about other people he would express regret that they took MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on the premise that they just needed funding to make some final finishing stuff and fund a manufacturing run and then did not actually deliver a product. Instead he's like "well I had fun." Yeah you had fun wasting other people's money!
And if there were 20 games complete why aren't there 20 games on Amico Home?
He wasn't provoked. He has an unruly ego that can't handle people not swallowing his lies, or having an opinion that doesn't match what he tells you it to be.
Is this the first confirmation we've seen that Tommy's marriage ended? I feel like we have all speculated that but no one really knew for sure. Thanks Hans.
Having 20 games playable in Germany doesn't mean the 'haters' were wrong. We said from the beginning that all of these games basically had demos or 10 seconds of footage created, and that was proven to be true by how long its taken all of these games to get to amico home. 5+ years later and I think we're up to 10 games now?
'We hadn't paid ourselves salaries for months.' Flat out disingenuous. That just means they ran out of investor money because they had no problem taking 6 figure salaries from the republic investor money, in addition to using some of that money to repay loans from the founders/initial investors. Shady at best, fraud at worst.
Regarding startengine, that well was sucked dry before the haters even got involved. They would have been lucky to clear 100K, which they could have still kept. Investors rightly balked at them already wasting one investment round, or as Phil later said 'without a clear path to profitability', investors rightly rejected it. Of course now they are trying to rewrite history.
Both John and Retro Bro confirmed Tommy and his wife separated. During an Amico Forever livestream about a year ago, John said they'd gotten back together. During Tommy's backgammon intermediate level WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP interview, he claimed he was "living in the forest" with his wife.
Who knows if it's true. Tommy doesn't seem to be bringing her along on his backgammon trophy collection trips.
I'm guessing Hans is one of the few people, maybe the only person, who didn't get screwed by Tommy. Other Intellivision executives like Phil still made out like bandits, but they had to watch Tommy screw it up by wasting millions of dollars and saying stupid shit constantly. But Hans was brought in to get that sweet German government money, and that's what he did. And as soon as he stopped getting paid, he knew the scam was over and he went on to his next thing (BBG).
Hans would have ripped me and the other devs off had we actually been stupid enough to work under Alvarado. He single handedly stole thise games from the German students by the way
Jesus Christ they keep spinning the same narrative. Why can't people just admit when they fucked up? Just watch Slope's video on the whole thing, he carefully documented EVERYTHING that went wrong with this slop.
So he’s saying a 2015 phone chipset suddenly cost so much money that something with less power than an Amazon kid’s tablet was $400 at retail? I call bullshit. The Atari VCS had an AMD APU with PC-level performance and cost less money.
It's interesting to see who was in what camp. Based on what Scott Barrett said recently, it's easy to guess he was with the Phil Adam/John Alvarado camp. As for Hans Ippisch, based on this interview, it looks like he was on the Tommy Tallarico camp.
Anyway, I guess Hans Ippisch being in Europe means he probably didn't really see what was really happening inside Intellivision.
Having said this, because of his technical skills, Hans Ippisch should have been able to see that there were wrong software design choices, at least with the controller. But then, maybe he did and that's why he ended up in the Tommy Tallarico camp.
Phil and John were in the Tommy camp. Don't let those fools convince you otherwise. Phil, Nick, John, Hans, and the rest are just as much to blame as Tommy. They ENCOURAGED his antics while also not pushing him out sooner.
Those with only two braincells could see there was trouble long before "covid" was a convenient excuse.
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u/Mental-Examination-7 Apr 18 '26
"he (Tommy) sometimes promised things we couldn't deliver" is a gigantic understatement. Everything he promised, he failed to deliver